Don Carson | How Does Jesus Fulfill the Law? | TGCW18

now I've been teaching courses on how the New Testament quotes the old and how Jesus fulfills the Old Testament for about 45 years which means if you prick me with a pen or the like I bleed Old Testament and New Testament the danger of course is that I try to dump the whole lot on you in 45 minutes and produce nothing but a kind of spiritual indigestion which is not helpful to anybody so what I propose to do is to begin with four passages that we'll look at just briefly where there's some kind of talk about fulfilling or not fulfilling or following or not following the law and then having stimulated your pure Minds by way of remembrance to quote Paul of Peters words I'll try to lay out a schema of different ways in which the New Testament is said to fulfill the law okay and then I'll end with two or three theological observations at the end so that's where we're going I begin then with several passages the first one is in Matthew chapter 5 near the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount verses 17 to 20 Matthew 5:17 to 20 here Jesus says do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them and then he says more in the following verses now it's important to see what the text does not say it does not say I have not come to abolish the law in the prophets but to keep them there's a perfectly good way in Greek for saying that but that's not what he says he does not say I have not come to abolish them but to show their true intensity it doesn't say that either it says I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them which immediately raises the question as to what fulfill means now the verb to fulfill in the Greek New Testament is used more by Matthew than in the rest of the New Testament combined and as far as I can see everywhere in Matthew with there might be one exception it means something like to be that to which the other party pointed in other words if Jesus fulfills X it's because X pointed to Jesus and now along this temporal axis this axis of time in the fullness of time Jesus serves as that - which Expo in which the verb to fulfill is used in the New Testament one in James and elsewhere that we needed to go into but as far as I can see that's the way Matthew regularly uses the text so in other words Jesus is not merely keeping the law or intensifying the law which are a temporal abstract categories he is fulfilling the law which presupposes progress in time this pointed to something and now in the fullness of time something fulfills it now in one sense that's easy enough to understand we'll see in a few minutes that there are ways in which for example the Passover celebration points to Jesus I'll come to that one explicitly in a few moments how that works but when Paul says in 1st Corinthians 5 Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us what he means of course when Paul says that is that is that this is the fulfillment of the Passover this is the direction in which the Passover sacrifice points exactly how that happens will come - as I say in a few moments so so when it comes to what we call the ceremonial law it's not uncommon for us to show ways in which Old Testament law is fulfilled in the coming of Jesus or in Jesus teaching or in Jesus sacrifice and death and resurrection will come two examples of that in due course now this isn't the only passage in Matthew where something like this is said in Matthew chapter 11 verse 13 I wish I had time to unpack the context more completely but in Matthew chapter 11 verse 13 Jesus says all the prophets and the law prophesied until John that is John the Baptist and if you are willing to accept it he is the Elijah who was to come in other words it doesn't say the prophets prophesied and the law legislated it says the prophets and the law prophesied in other words law can have a function in the mind of Jesus not only of legislating but a prophesy of predicting and of course again the easy example is something like Passover Passover was legislation the event itself took place and then there was legislation about how to observe the Passover year by year year by year and was legislated but Paul's insistence is that that Passover celebration year by year ultimately pointed to Jesus as the ultimate Passover now we'll see how that works as I said in a moment but we're we've got to come to grips with the fact that it's not just prophecy that predicts law can predict as well and there are a lot of examples of that sort of thing as we'll see now come back to chapter 5 verse 17 still there do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them now what is it then when Jesus says the law of the prophets that he's thinking of here it's worth mentioning an interpretation that is very common in the history of the church in the history of the church from about Aquinas on it's common to divide that's 12th century it's common to divide the law into three parts moral civil and ceremonial law moral law is usually the mind as law that is binding on all human beings everywhere in every age at all times it's moral law its unchanging civil law is normally defined as law given by God to the Israelites in the Old Testament in virtue of the fact that they constituted a nation it was civil law so because the church is not a nation but a covenant community without being a nation it's an international community there is no civil law so the argument goes but ceremonial law then is the law that is bound up with the temple priesthood sacrifice and so on and that's all fulfilled in Christ that's the common division of the law since Thomas Aquinas picked up by Calvin the Reformers most evangelicals and so on moral civil ceremonial law so the question is what laws in view here and many many many people have argued that what's in view here is the moral law so john stott for example and is lovely exposition of the Sermon on the Mount called Christian counterculture it's worth picking up and and reading but in all fairness on that particular point I hesitate to say that I disagree with someone as venerable as John Stott but I do now this may just mean that I'm wrong but on the other hand I insist on my right to be wrong before you see I have difficulty on that interpretation with the next verse for truly I tell you Jesus says until heaven and earth disappear that's the first until until heaven and earth disappear not the smallest letter not the least stroke of a pen will by any means disappear from the law until there's the second until everything is accomplished now not the smallest letter in Hebrew there's a little letter it's called the old that it's just a little hook and not the least stroke of a pen and King James Version the least tittle what it refers to is in Hebrew there are three pairs of letters where there's just a little blob of ink that distinguishes them an R from a D example is distinguished by one little blob of ink that's just a tittle it's just a drop and this text is saying not one stroke of a pen not one tittle will in any sense be removed from the law taken away until and then there are two old hills first until at the beginning of the verse is until heaven and earth disappear that means until the end of the age that's the ultimate until until the end of the age this stuff's there it's in Scripture and God's not taking it away and then the second until is until everything is accomplished which again carries on the vision of chapter 5 verse 17 the law is going to be fulfilled and eventually it will all be accomplished that is the law itself looks forward to everything being accomplished everything that looks forward to all the way to the end of the age various things coming along and are being fulfilled the death of Christ predicted in one fashion or another through the law the resurrection of Christ the exultation of Christ of the right hand of the Son of God the resurrection existence of the promise of the new heaven and the new earth in some way or other it's all predicted in the law in one fashion or another and every jot and tittle will have to be fulfilled all the way to the end of the age until bit by bit everything is accomplished I think that's what verse 18 says and that sounds a lot more comprehensive than just the moral law now if I had time I'd go further in unpack verses 19 and 20 but I'm going to skip for want of time now let's turn to another passage Romans chapter 10 Romans chapter 10 a well-known often cited text bearing on this subject let me start at verse 1 brothers and sisters my heart's desire and prayer for to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved for I can testify about them that they are zealous for God but their zeal is not based on knowledge since they did not know the righteousness of God and to establish their own they did not submit to Christ's to God's righteousness verse 4 Christ is the culmination of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes now our English versions have Christ is the culmination of the law Christ is the fulfillment of the law Christ as the end of the law a lot of different words are used the word in Greek for those of you interested in such things is tell us which can mean end hence the King James Version says Christ is the end of the law but that might conjure up in English the idea of bringing it to an end the law continues continues continues along comes Jesus bang out goes the law but the word end tell us can also have the notion depending on the context of the goal of the law so the law points ahead points ahead points ahead points ahead and then when Christ comes that's the goal the end the culmination which is what the NIV here has the culmination of the law now that might bring the law to an end a stop in some sense but it's valid continuity is precisely in that to which it points dude you see and I take it that's the way this is meant I won't try and defend it there are countless hundreds of books and articles written on this one verse alone in its context to argue one side or the other I'll just tell you for the moment which side is correct my side ya know as far as I can see in the context it doesn't mean really Christ as the culmination of the law he's the end he's the goal of the law which brings us back to this notion of the fulfillment of things do you see let's pick up one more passage in Romans and then one in 1st Corinthians and then we'll do more of our survey Romans 3 Romans 3:21 now let me remind you of the context from 1:18 to 3:20 Paul spends his time proving that all human beings without distinction without exception are guilty sinners before God and after working this out in terms of history and theology and Old Testament quotations and creation and fall and sexual matters and Jew and Gentile and so on after he works it all out he ends with an amazing list of Old Testament proof texts chapter three verses 10 and following as it is written there is no one righteous not even one there is no one who understands there is no one who seeks God all have turned away they have together become worthless there is no one who does good not even one their throats are open graves their tongues practice deceit the poison of vipers is on their lips their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness their feet are Swift to shed blood ruin and misery mark their ways and the way of peace they do not know there is no fear of God before their eyes that's the background for the paragraph that begins in 321 but now and then you have in 321 226 one of the greatest atonement passages cross passages in all of the New Testament Martin Luther calls this the center of the Epistle to the Romans and indeed of the entire Bible now it's just verse 21 we'll look at I wish I had more time to go through the whole paragraph but in verse 21 Paul says this but now that is at this point in redemptive history so you're looking again at this sweep of history everybody guilty whether they have been under the law or not they're all under the curse of the law whether it's the law written in their hearts or the law of Moses that they've inherited as Jews it doesn't matter they're all lost but now apart from the law oh that's interesting apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known to which the law and the prophets testify now that's interesting too you have both continuity and discontinuity as far as I can see it means something like this but now apart from the law covenant apart from the structure of the law that is the law which was given at the time of Moses in connection with the 10 commandments and with what we've been hearing about in the Deuteronomy series apart from that because that law covenant has come to an end apart from that law covenant the righteousness of God that we need to save us that makes us acceptable before God the righteousness of God that he talks about in the rest of the verse the righteousness of God that's secured and in Christ and His Cross work in his sacrifice for sin on our behalf that's the point of verses 21 to 26 apart from the law covenant this has been made known to us to which the law and the prophets testify so it may be that this righteousness from God that is brought about by the cross of Christ comes to us now has been revealed to us now apart from the law covenant but that doesn't mean it's got no connection whatsoever with the law covenant there is a sense in which the law covenant points forward to it it's to which the law and the prophets have in fact been pointing do you see that's a little more subtle it's not the law is gone here comes the gospel nor is it the law continues exactly the same way just suck it up you know this same law the Old Covenant the new no no the law covenants gone it's it's the righteousness of God has been disclosed apart from that law covenant yet it's not gone disappeared got nothing to do with anything even forget it and just study the New Testament and consign the Old Testament to the pit no we're told that the law covenant is that which pointed to Jesus so if you want to understand who Jesus is and what he's done you need to understand that which points to him do you you see let me read the verse again but now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known to which the law and the prophets testify one more passage that talks about these things in interesting ways first Corinthians chapter 9 now again it would be helpful if we had time to unpack the entire context we don't have time we'll look briefly at verses 19 to 23 first Corinthians 9 19 to 23 though I am free and belonged to no one I'm in no one's pocket I'm in no one's party I have made myself a slave to everyone to win as many as possible now this is in a context where Paul is showing how he has given up so many of his rights precisely in order to win others to Christ he's made himself a slave to others so that he can win them and then he gives them a couple of examples to the Jews this is Paul the Jew the Christian Jew writing to the Jews I became like a I became like a Jew to win the Jews what does he mean he became like a Jew he explains it you know I thought he was already a Jew but he says he became like a Jew to win the Jews he explains it to those under the law there's the law again that is Jews who are under the law to those under the law I became like one under the law although I myself am not under the law now that's interesting isn't it and we'll see in a few moments that he has to become like a Gentile too so in other words Paul does not see himself as a Christian Jew with Christian Jew sensibilities who has to flex in order to win Gentiles he sees himself rather in what the Latin theologians always call the tell tiem quid boy that'll impress your Bible study won't it the TEL see him quit the third position he's not a a Jew Christian he's not a Gentile Christian he's a Christian and as a Christian to win the Jews he's got to flex to become more Jewish in order to win the Jews and he's got to flex the other way to become more like those without the law to win those who are without the law now with that background remembering that he places himself in this Chelsea um quid in this third position look again at the paragraph verse 22 the Jews I became like a Jew to win the Jews to those under the law I became like one under the law though I myself am NOT under the law so as to win those under the law he has to flex so in other words he does not see himself as under the law covenant he just doesn't so he's prepared to eat kosher food when he's with a lot of people who eat kosher food so that he can win those who eat kosher food as it were but it's not because he feels he himself must eat kosher food yet clearly in some sense as we'll see this does not mean he is completely lawless what does he go on to say to those not having the law that is Gentiles to those not having the law I became like one not having the law though I am not free from God's law whoa Paul give me a break which way do you want it he's just finished saying that he's not under God's law now he says he's not free from God's law what does he mean well he he takes the time to explain to those not having the law I became like one not having the law though I am NOT free from God's law but I'm under Christ's law so he's not free from all moral obligation but the structure of the moral obligation under which he finds himself is not the Old Testament law structure the law covenant it's what he calls Christ's law now what that immediately does in terms of how we think about these things holistically is raise the question okay then what's the relationship between Christ's law and God's law that's what it raises that's a biggie because transparently there are some things connected with Christ's law that are not exactly lined up with a law of Moses with the law of God mediated through Moses to take easy examples in mark chapter 7 Jesus said certain things in mark comets this he said making all foods clean well that's that's not exactly God's law is it oh it was God's law at the time but it's not something that Jesus is mandating for everybody and Paul himself doesn't any problems along those lines and Peter after the issue with the sheep with a defiled animals he he's prepared to eat unco sure food he has a little debate with Paul on the matter a little later in Galatians two but but nevertheless in principle Peter and Paul are an agreement on such matters do you do you see and the question is how many other things are are not followed what what exactly is the content of Christ's law so we're getting closer now to the question in what sense does Jesus fulfilled the law of God we're getting closer to the issue now more generally Paul finishes out the paragraph by saying to the week I became weak to win the week I had become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some in other words his motivation in being so culturally flexible is precisely evangelism is not because he wants to do these things to stand on his own freedom but precisely in order to evangelize it's a remarkable passage all right those are the passages to get our gray cells working to reflect Poirot now let me suggest a handful of ways in which Christ is said to fulfill the law before we look at five or six of them let me mention one other detail first there are some passages in the Old Testament that specifically predict something which is said to be fulfilled by Jesus or in Jesus day in other words we're going to be talking about trajectories and typology z' and things like well but we'll come to those things in a minute but there are some cases we've simply got prediction and fulfillment that's what you and I commonly think in English a prophecy is there's a prediction and then it's fulfilled and there are some passages like that in the Bible for example when the magi come and ask where is he to be born who is labeled king of the jews the experts look up micah 5:2 and say in Bethlehem of Judea for thus it is written and they quote Micah 5:2 and they got it right that's what Micah 5:2 does say it's a prediction and it was fulfilled quite literally a verbal prediction fulfilled by an event there are passages like that or in Deuteronomy 18 18 in the passage that's still going to be treated I can't remember it's tonight or tomorrow morning but the point is that God will raise up a prophet like Moses which is specifically tied to the Lord Jesus in the New Testament you see it's a verbal prediction and it's fulfilled and in the coming of Jesus it was a prophet in some ways like Moses so let me suggest some ways in which the New Testament is said or Jesus is said to fulfill the law number one the continuation of law as prescription as the easiest one the continuation of law as prescription for example the Old Testament in the ten commandments for example whether you're quoting Exodus 20 or Deuteronomy 5 the Old Testament forbids adultery the New Testament forbids adultery and can do so precisely in connection with quoting the Old Testament at this level it's it's it's worth pausing for a moment to remind ourself of a text like Romans chapter 14 in Romans chapter 14 we read verse 5 one person considers one day more sacred than another another considers every day alike each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord whoever eats meat does so to the Lord for they give thanks to God whoever abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God in other words there are some Old Testament prescriptions which Paul treats as not binding on Christians in the New Testament and Christians are free to disagree one man views one day above another and other man views all days the same that's the language that he uses let each be fully persuaded in his own mind but Paul does not say you cannot imagine Paul saying one person regards adultery as a really naughty thing and another person regards adultery is well okay it's part of your freedom in Jesus let each be fully persuaded in his or her own mind you can't imagine that can you in other words there are some things that are prohibited or mandated prescribed legally by the Old Testament which are equally prescribed mandated prohibited by the New Covenant now we still want to ask the question what are those things is there a general category I'll come to that at the end all right but there are some things there are some points of continuity between the Old Testament and the New Testament law that are simply in terms of continuation of demand number two there are trajectories of various kinds now it's often common to use the word typology because that's loaded with so much Freight for some people I'm going to use the word trajectory let's take one that I've already mentioned at the time of the Exodus God delivered the people through the great and terrible event of Passover that is the people of God who feared the Word of God slaughtered a sacrificial lamb and sprinkled the blood of the lamb on the two doorposts and the lintel of each home the people in the home gathered together and ate the lamb and when the Angel of Death passed over the house that night hence the term Passover the firstborn son was spared the firstborn animals were spared everything that was firstborn was sanctioned by death but at the same time the blood of the lamb meant that the angel of destruction passed over and in consequence of that release from judgment God ordained the annual Passover festival every Passover season the Jews were supposed to slaughter a Passover lamb and eat the Passover lamb looking back to the reliefs that God had already provided in the Passover event so the Passover ritual the Passover festival the Passover Feast was a way of looking back and remembering how God had destroyed much of Egypt this way which led in fact to the escape from Egypt the abolition of slavery crossing the Red Sea all of the events were tied up with this Passover festival looking back looking back year 1 look back at the Passover look you're to look back at the Passover year 3 look back at the Passover year four look back at the Passover year 156 look back at the Passover you're 237 look back at the past looking back and looking back and looking back and looking back but the years keep ticking over and you keep looking back and if you're a thoughtful Israelite you can't help but remember that God has spared you not only at the time of the Passover but in subsequent events too he spared them through some of the great terrible ordeals of the Sinai desert save them from Sion and OGG spared them so that although the first generation was wiped out nevertheless the people did get into the Promised Land under Joshua then a century goes by now they look back and remember how because of their sin and idolatry they go off into exile and yet God brings them back from exile and we're still looking back here to this release but they're all of these other releases too until eventually people must ask the question so what's the ultimate release who finally deals with our sin yes that slaughtered lamb meant that there was a passing over of our sin at the time but God has passed over our sin so many times since then yet we still continue sinning will there not ever be any release and you can see Paul's mind working along exactly those lines till you begin to realize that the Passover mandated by God to be repeated he's not only looking back it's anticipating an ultimate release and Paul picks up his pen and writes Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us it was not just an accident of history that Christ died on Passover weekend that the Lord's Supper itself was connected in the first instance with a Jewish Passover it's been transmuted and we've learned some lessons from it do this in remembrance of me just as the ancient Jews repeated the Passover in remembrance of what had already been done but do this until I come because the Lord suffer not only looks back it looks forward to the end of the age in the ultimate release in the return of Christ dude you see so there is a trajectory that is established in time based on an historical event pointing forward to another redeeming historical event Christ Jesus until the culminating event of the return of Christ and the dawning of the new heaven and the new earth now that's one kind of trajectory in which a trajectory itself points forward to Christ do you see it's not an easy thing it's not it's not as if when the first Passover sacrifice is offered up all the Jews were saying AHA yeah I understand that so when this one's pointing to Jesus they hadn't got there yet the structures were being put in place so that eventually it would get tied in some minds and certainly after the cross would get caught tied in all Christian minds to the fact that there was a lamb who was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities of the peace of God was was was was established by him by his wounds we are healed and so on do you see so that the pieces get tied together eventually but a trajectory has to be established until you see the ways in which it points forward that's one it's an easy one but there are a lot of them of that sort then there is another one that is much the same yet it's a little more subtle it's it's turning on what might be called parallels not quite analogies parallels established in the initial structure that are repeated in festivals year after year year after year after year that also point forward for example Leviticus 16 and the day of atonement another great feast day on the day of atonement according to Leviticus 16 the high priest and only the high priest entered into the most holy chamber with a blood of bull and go to pay not only for his own sin but also for the sins of the people and presented the blood before God on top of the Ark of the Covenant under the model wings of the cherubim now picture yourself in ancient Israel you've gone up to the temple for this ritual you don't get to go into the most holy place but you know that God has ordained that the blood of the bull and the goat will cover not only the sins of the priests and his family but also your sins you go and present yourself there to God a way of reminding you that at the end of the day the sentence imposed on sinners is death and the blood of the bull and the goat symbolize that death there are other structures to the Day of Atonement there's one animal that's released into the desert taking your sins far away it's another kind of symbolism that's tied to the same thing do you see but now you're a thoughtful person you can't help but ask yourself well thank God my sins have been looked after one more time I wonder if I can get through this day without sinning again and waiting til this time next year and if you're very precipitant you might start asking what is the blood of a bull and goat got to do with anything I mean does the bull come along and say there's my neck slashing I sacrifice myself for these dirty sinners there's no moral value to this sacrifice in human terms the only sacrifice that's being made is by the owner of the bull or the goat for whom the bull and the goat represent quite a lot of money it got ordains it ties it to the shedding of blood the loss of life where's the end of this and you see once again that sort of insight into what is the nature of the trajectory is worked out precisely in a book like the Epistle of the Hebrews where the logic is worked out in great detail in Hebrews 9 and 10 the blood of bull and goat can never take away sin so before he talks about the nature of the continuities and the analogies and the the practicalities and all of that he he deals with some basic home truths that you should see in any case at the end of the day the blood of a goat doesn't pay for when you cheated on your husband but it's a trajectory that's formed a little more clearly established in retrospect than in prospect but tied to deep deep notions about how sin engenders death and where there's sin there must be death for any party to be declared free then there are also trajectories that establish I'll use the expression then you can forgive me principal obsolescence that's almost as good as telling him quit isn't it hebrews chapter eight and then let me explain what I mean in Hebrews chapter eight the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews has a long quotation in verses starting in verses 7 and 8 from Jeremiah 31 it's a well-known passage many of you will remember that the Jeremiah 31 passage the days are coming declares the Lord when I will make a new covenant with the people of Israel and with the pre people of Judah it will not be like the Old Covenant I made and so on so and so on so it's the promise of a new covenant and it won't be like the Old Covenant right you're familiar with that notion with that passage and he quotes it all the way down to verse 12 now there are so many things that he could have done to explain that Old Testament passage in more detail but in fact he draws one conclusion it's a corker chapter 8 verse 13 by calling this covenant new that is by Jeremiah under inspiration of God calling this promise new covenant new he has made the first one obsolete and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear do you hear the logic here the people of God live under the Old Covenant the covenant mediated through Moses the covenant established in Mount Sinai the covenant that Moses is still trying to get ratified and renewed and so on in Deuteronomy now centuries later the sixth century BC Jeremiah promises the coming of a new covenant now if you announce a new covenant he says that means the established covenant is implicitly declared old you managed to show that the old covenant is old then in some sense in principle it's obsolete in other words here is a trajectory that establishes the Principia obsolescence it's obsolete in principle of the Old Covenant in other words Hebrews is showing that if you read the Old Testament carefully and this trajectory of the New Covenant there are a lot of Old Testament passages that promise a new company Ezekiel 37 promises a new covenant a lot of them clustered around prophets in the sixth century before Christ as soon as you get all these passages promising a new covenant you made the old one old nobody called covenant with Moses old until you promised a new one he promised a new one then the Covenant becomes the old covenant and that which is old he said is in principle obsolete and ready to disappear 600 years before Christ so what on earth are you doing trying to cling on to it now Paul the writer of the Hebrews says do you see already already it's it's principal obsolescence it's obsolete nurse has already been established by the Prophet six hundred years before Jesus so what on earth is anybody doing trying to hang on to it as if it's still in force do you see that still raises the important question of how do you connect the Old Covenant with a new covenant what are the points of continuity and discontent you yeah we'll say a bit more about that but nevertheless it's not the case that Christians see themselves as under the Old Covenant anymore which is precisely why Paul as we saw on 1st Corinthians 9 can say though I am NOT myself under the law he's not under the law covenant along covenants dead dead as a dodo for Paul did you see even though it's pointing forward and is being fulfilled in some ways their points of continuity that go on yet nevertheless it's obsolescence was already established 600 years before Christ and there are quite a few of those too that there's another one on priesthood in Hebrews 7 that's a little more complex we'll let it pass then there are trajectories that are seen to be trajectories only after the fact there are trajectories that are seen to be trajectories only after the fact now if I had time I would unpack the theme of temple a great length the temple is the meeting place between God and human beings and of course in one sense you can view Eden as a kind of temple that's where God met human beings already in the first instance and then you can remember the jacob for example met God at what he calls Bethel house of God a kind of proto temple without the masonry and eventually there's a tabernacle that's built and eventually the temple that's built and then the temple is destroyed and a new temple is that most of you will know this storyline of the temple and so on then you come to the New Testament and what does Jesus say in John to destroy this temple in three days I'll build it again what temple his opponents didn't have a clue not a clue for a start you can't destroy a temple made of stone without hydraulics and dynamite and build another one in three days made even more complex by the fact that it was against the law to use a hammer anywhere within hearing distance of the temple grounds you know we can put up a prefab house in two or three days all you need is a good work crew a lot of prefab stuff and cheap foundation and forty people and a decent engineer and you can put up a house it's done all the time but a temple the great basilica's of Europe often took more than one generation to build the initial architect never saw the finished work he was dead and even the Temple of Solomon took years to accomplish Jesus comes along and says destroy this temple in three days already after he was risen from the dead John says then the disciples remembered his words and believed the scriptures and understood that he was talking about his own body in other words here is a trajectory in which Jesus himself becomes the ultimate temple that is the ultimate meeting place between God and sinners that's exactly what a temple is so Jesus turns out to be the ultimate temple the Wood priest the ultimate sacrifice all of these trajectories running forward to Christ and you don't see all of them how they work until after the event itself and then you see you know yeah yeah Jesus Jesus is my mediator Jesus is my priest Jesus is my temple I I meet God in Jesus I and it's destroy this temple and and I will raise it up it's it's precisely through the destruction of Jesus as the temple of God that he is constituted the temple of God it's a remarkable passage oh one more one more there's what might be called a moral trajectory in a passage like him Romans chapter 13 verses 8 to 10 Paul writes let no debt remain outstanding except the continuing debt to love one another for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law oh there's fulfill again the commandments you shall not commit adultery you shall not murder you shall not steal you shall not covet and whatever other command there may be are summed up in this one command love your neighbor as yourself love does no harm to a neighbor therefore love is the fulfillment of the law in other words these commands that Jesus quotes are things that stop you from doing harm to someone else so there's a sense in which they point forward to the ultimate fulfillment of loving people such that you don't harm anybody else there's a moral dimension to this fulfillment language okay that's number two and we're just about out of time however I'll go fast now number three there are complex combinations of specific traditions riding on trajectories let me repeat that there are complex combinations of specific traditions riding on the back of tradition of trajectories this is easy to understand with an illustration or two in other words it's pretty obvious that there are Old Testament passages that talk about a coming David they begin in 2 samuel 7:14 and following and you find them in Psalm 2 and Psalm 16 and many other passages we just don't have time to look them all up but there is an expectation of what the hymn writer calls great David's greater son in other words there's an expectation of a king David coming and you you find it in passages that we sing every Christmas time because of Handel's Messiah I saw a chapter 9 that's eight centuries before Christ eight centuries before Christ we sing for unto us a child is born unto us a son is given then the verses want to say he shall reign on the throne of his father David of the increase of his kingdom there shall be no end but he shall also be called the wonderful counselor the mighty God the everlasting father the Prince of Peace so now you've got a Davidic trajectory Davidic typology if you like that runs right through large parts of the Old Testament anticipating the Great King in David's line that after all is the way the New Testament begins isn't it the origins of Jesus Christ the son of Abraham the son of David then you have this you have this genealogy and the central 14 is are the years of David's reign and the reign of his immediate offspring demonstrating that Jesus is the promised of it again you see and then on the back of that there are all kinds of other kinds of sonship and other notions that are attached on the back of this Davidic King ship trajectory a lot of other things are attached I'm just going to state that I don't have time to demonstrate it number four there are trajectories of moral analogy trajectories of moral analogy let me give you one it's found twice in the New Testament first Corinthians 10 one two thirteen and Hebrews three seven to the end of the chapter the argument runs like this and it has a bearing on the deuteronomy stuff that we've been looking at the argument runs like this you can look it up and Hebrews three seven and following in Jew course the author there quotes Psalm 95 which finds God addressing the people in the days of the Psalms and saying today if you don't harden your heart I will give you rest uuuugh hardened your heart when you came up to the promised land and you didn't get that rest but today you're in the promised land now but but you still need rest with God don't be like those who fell away they got out of the land of Egypt they had enough faith and grace to get out of the land of slavery they never got into the promised land so you - he says you be careful that you're not like those of that day who have enough grace to turn away from sin but you never really enter into the promises of full hearted salvation you can be saved out from but not in - now that's that raises all kinds of interesting questions it's nicely summarized in Hebrews chapter 3 verse 14 you have been made partakers of christ you have become shares of Christ you become Christians if you hold the beginning of your confidence steadfast to the end in other words genuine Christianity by definition sticks by definition and here are these people in the desert sadly they've had enough faith to get out they don't have enough faith to get in they don't hold the beginning of their confidence the opening of the confidence steadfastly to the end he says you don't be like that that's the kind of trajectory of moral analogy to UTC and that shows up several times in the New Testament as well well there are others I'm going to call it quits there and finish this way number one is the three-fold division of the law valid there is no place in the new testament that unambiguously says we hold to the threefold division of the law moral civil and ceremonial law and only the moral law keeps going the rest of it don't worry about there's no passage that sounds like that there are passages in the New Testament that make distinctions between law and law for example in Matthew 23:23 you tithe your garden-variety herbs mint cumin and anise but you ignore the weightier matters of justice and mercy so the Bible can weigh the importance of various kinds of laws but the whole tripartite distinction I find difficult to anchor in the New Testament but that doesn't mean that there is no category for what we might call moral law this is what I hold I don't have time to defend it but I'd be prepared to at some length if you gave me a facade the traditional way of thinking about moral civil and ceremonial law is that the moral law category establishes what continues from the old testament to the new and the other to civil and ceremonial fall away so you have a moral category being the presupposition of what continues I think the new testament works exactly the opposite way around namely you establish the lines of continuity by observing what texts have the same demands don't commit adultery don't commit adultery don't commit idolatry don't commit idolatry love your mother and father love your mother and father you observed carefully exegetically what are the points of continuous demand and you define them after the fact as moral law in other words I like the category of moral law not as a presupposition for establishing lines of continuity and discontinuity but as an inference to be drawn as you see how the New Testament quotes the old and uses the old and applies the old so that the authority comes not from a presupposition of definition but from the plain reading of the text two more observations as to the second of three reformed theology often speaks of the third use of the law the first use of the law was to control Israel to limit its options to Train it in justice and righteousness the second use of the law was what we've been talking about here it points forward to the coming of Christ and the third use of the law was applying it to believers themselves to restrain them and teach them and put in the right context I'm happy to talk about the third use of the law I prefer to talk about the fulfillment of the law if you don't know what I'm talking about don't worry about it it just means you haven't come from that tradition last there are numerous passages where biblical writers say things like how I love your law Oh God it's honey to the heart sweeter than honey comb brings light and life read passages like Psalm 19 passages of that order do to Judy see and then it's worth remembering that law the very category law Torah in Hebrew Torah has the overtone of instruction it's not just legislation the Old Testament law is not just Commandments and prohibitions it's instruction and as soon as you remember that it seems to me a lot of these kinds of uses of the old how Jesus fulfills these instructions which instruction includes prohibitions and Commandments and so on nevertheless fit into a larger grid of the whole of the Council of God moving us toward a deeper understanding of who Jesus is now I just gave you about ten hours worth of material in one hour that's because I have a very very high estimate of your capacity and mercifully everything that is said here is recorded in any case you can have another run at it I think I've got time for one question and that's about it yes I see that hand I I've written on many of the passages involved I don't have an overview summary of this particular thing but on the other hand on the other hand you have a lecture now I think we'd better call it quits there let me pronounce the benediction Lord God help us we pray better and better to understand your most holy word to see how its put together to delight in it to learn from it to correct ourselves as we become interpreters who do not need to be ashamed as we rightly handle the word of truth we ask in Jesus name Amen you

Channel: The Gospel Coalition

Views: 28,619

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Keywords: the gospel coalition, the gospel, gospel, coalition, Christ, Christian, Christianity, spiritual, teaching, Scripture, Law, Old Testament, Moses

Id: qSWPqiUIZBo

Length: 74min 5sec (4445 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 08 2019